Tag Archives: zoom

Recently, I dropped my Tamron zoom lens. As far as camera lenses go, it wasn’t that expensive, but being a DSLR lens, it still cost close to $200. Basically, I picked up my excellent camera sling (Amazon) without the door zipped shut. Apparently having the door closed is required for proper equipment retention.

After picking the lens up, I could feel loose glass shaking around, and see it when the cap was taken off. The lens quickly went in the trash. After all, I don’t want glass spewing all over my garage. For what it’s worth, I had my GoPro running on time-lapse, so I was able to produce a crude video of it happening, which can be seen later in this post.

You may have wondered “Christmas Tree Long Exposure Zoom” means, but maybe the photo gave you some clue. No, I haven’t turned the tree into some Tesla Coil a la Red Alert 2, but simply zoomed in on the tree while taking a long-exposure photo.

If I remember my process correctly, for this photo I took a shot with the flash on while zoomed most of the way out. This “froze” the non-lit portion (for the most part) in this position. The shutter was then held open while I zoomed in. This allowed the lights on the tree to appear to be streaking in a more-or-less straight line, while the rest of it was mostly dark.

I originally saw this technique on Reddit shown in the tree to the right. Admittedly, that tree is more impressive, but our little guy didn’t turn out too badly! This technique would probably work better with a motorized zoom mechanism to steady one’s hand, and/or a very sturdy tripod to keep everything still.

So merry late Christmas from DIYTripods! Maybe you can still get a shot like this before the tree is taken down!